Texas Instruments Assigned Patent for Smart Sensors for Solar Panels

By Targeted News Service

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 26 -- Texas Instruments, Dallas, has been assigned a patent (8,294,451) developed by Gary D. Hasenfus, Concord, Calif., for a "smart sensors for solar panels."The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A solar panel smart sensor system is disclosed. The sensor system permits solar power system owners and operators to monitor the voltage of individual panels in a solar array. The system uses a low wire-count bus in which the order of sensors on the bus is automatically determined. A novel technique is used to measure DC voltages of panels that may be floating hundreds of volts above ground. Bypass diodes are monitored to detect lost power generation capacity."

The patent application was filed on Nov. 18, 2008 (12/272,990). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8,294,451.PN.&OS=PN/8,294,451&RS=PN/8,294,451

Written by Kusum Sangma; edited by Anand Kumar.

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